Semper uber sub uber. Wait. That's not right.

[klwilliams]

Since Super Bowl 50 will be local next weekend, San Francisco has been prepping for crowds. There's a Super Bowl Village in the area around the Ferry Building, and that end of Market Street (plus part of the Financial District) has been closed off. That meant that this past weekend we couldn't be sure of getting a cab when we needed one, so I downloaded the Uber app for my phone.

The good: we got a Uber ride very quickly after requesting one. The drivers were very polite and friendly, and their cars were clean.

The bad: I had my walker for one ride, and since we had four people in our party we had to call an SUV. This meant that the walker couldn't lie flat the way it would in the trunk of a Yellow Cab, so it got knocked around. One of the handles got twisted around, but that was easy enough to fix.

The annoying: the UI for the app wasn't that obvious, particularly when using it for the first time on a San Francisco street. The second trip the app was convinced I was somewhere on Geary (I was nowhere near Geary), and I couldn't figure out how to change it. The Uber system is so good that before I could figure out how to cancel it (in a matter of a couple of minutes) the driver had arrived where the app thought I was and was looking for me. I got that cleared up and got a ride to the right place, but I felt bad and felt like an idiot.

Overall: I like Uber, though I'm going to also download the Yellow Cab app and use it first.

If you haven't used Uber and would like to, I got a First User special code: vuxsw. If you sign up for Uber with my code, you get $15 off your first ride (and I'll get a $15 credit to my own account).

Comments

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Uber drivers here are on strike since the company has reduced their fares by 15 - 20 %.

And You Also Got a Healthy Dose of Unspeakable Evil with That

[msaroff.livejournal.com]

The business plan, offloading all risk to the drivers and passengers, is unethical.

Re: And You Also Got a Healthy Dose of Unspeakable Evil with That

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's why I plan to get the Yellow Cab app. The only reason for using Uber is that it was easy to call. I prefer union cab companies, with employees.

Re: And You Also Got a Healthy Dose of Unspeakable Evil with That

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Matthew, there's also this: http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2016/02/02/uberpuppy-is-exactly-why-cab-companies-are-getting-crushed/?cmpid=NLmorford